21
Figure 8 - Malawi: rural households who rely mainly on food purchase by month in 2009
Source: Authors’ calculation on World Food Programme, 2010
However, ganyu payment rates fall at times of food shortages (Malawi National Vulnerability
Assessment Committee, 2005).
Doward et al. (2008) estimate that 60 percent of the
household are regular maize buyers and, as such, are vulnerable to maize price fluctuations.
Finally, the group of highly food insecure people includes also the destitute and those
affected by HIV/AIDS who account for over the 19 percent of the economically active adults
(FAO & WFP, 2003).
Table 5 and Figure 9 illustrate the long term trends in harvested land, maize production and
land yields. Despite a rise in land yields per hectare due to the agricultural policies discussed
in the next section, during the last decade maize production per capita remained broadly
stagnant in the 140-240 Kg/capita range. However, food security has been affected as follows:
- Extreme (and increasing) output volatility. Even leaving aside the 2002 and 2008 food
crises, maize production appears to be extremely unstable and such as not to ensure an
adequate long term nutrition to the population, despite recurrent claims by the successive
governments that falls in maize output are in part compensated by increases in cassava
production.
- Vulnerability to the rises in international price of fertilizers. Agricultural policies have
consistently emphasized an intensification of the use of fertilizers to increase land yields in low
fertility Central and Southern Regions. Figure 9 shows that such policy lead to some progress in
this regard. Yet, complete dependence on imported fertilizers, whose prices are closely linked
to energy prices (Asareca 2008), increases the vulnerability to changes in international oil
prices. A rise in the latter increases production costs and can cause a drop in fertilizer demand
which translates – ceteris paribus - into lower maize yields and production, or higher maize
prices, or in a shift out of those crops that require heavy fertilization (maize, tobacco, tea) and
into those (such as roots and tubers) which are profitable also with no fertilizer use (Jayne et al.
2008b). For instance, while at the beginning of the 2000s, the fertilizer support programs,
combined with favourable weather, contributed to bumper harvests of three consecutive
years, the subsequent rise in the world price of fertilisers and the Kwacha devaluation of 2008
caused a 250 percent rise in domestic fertilizers’ prices (Figure 10) which contributed to the
food crisis of that year.
22
The impact of such rise on food insecurity was pointed out by Lewin & Fischer (2010) who
estimated that a 25 percent increase in urea prices raises the probability of food insecurity by
30 percent in the central Malawi and 18 percent in Southern Malawi. Other authors suggest
that the rise in global fuel and fertilizers prices raises the costs of producing agricultural
commodities in developing countries with a good use of fertilizers. The adoption of an
adequate fertilizer subsidy program in this context is thus fundamental to stabilize its use
(Jayne et al 2008b, FAO 2010b).
- A still important – if possibly declining - dependence on formal and informal maize
imports. In normal years Malawi is able to meet its effective maize demand and maize trade
accounts for a minimal proportion of consumption or production (Minot 2010). However,
during bad years maize imports rise sharply, exposing the country to fluctuations in regional
maize output, and to import competition by bigger countries with better transport
infrastructure. Malawi is also the highest informal importer of maize in Southern Africa
(FEWSNet, 2010) with annual volumes ranging between 50.000 and 80.000 tons. Yet, the
increase of maize output of last few years generated positive formal exports in 2007-2008
which took the form of government-to-government contracts stipulated with Zimbabwe
(Table 6).
Table 5 - Malawi: long term trends in land harvested, maize and land yields (2000-2009)
Total
Population
(‘000)
Area
Harvested
(Ha, ‘000)
Production
(‘000
Tons)
Land harv.
per capita
(ha)
Per capita
production
(kg)
Yield
(Kg/Ha)
Yearly %
change
in production
%change
per capita
production
2000
11,831
1,435
2.290
0.121
211
17,428
2001
12,194
1,446
1,589
0.118
140
11,844
-30.59
-33.55
2002
12,553
1,488
1,485
0.118
124
10,460
-6.55
-11.71
2003
12,912
1,617
1,847
0.125
153
12,259
24.38
23,84
2004
13,277
1,537
1,608
0.115
121
10,459
-12.94
-21.14
2005
13,654
1,513
1,225
0.110
89
8,093
-23.82
-25.92
2006
14,043
1,762
2,611
0.125
185
14,814
113.14
107.23
2007
14,439
1,215
3,226
0.084
223
26,547
23.54
20.15
2008
14,846
1,596
2,634
0.107
177
16,498
-18.33
-20.57
2009
15,263
2,171
3,582
0.142
234
16,498
35.97
32.25
Source: Authors’ calculations on FAOSTAT